New Haverstraw franchise offers to clear clutter in environmentally sound way

Dec. 21, 2012

Written by

Christine Gritmon

For The Journal News

Got junk? Welcome to the club. This time of year, it seems as if everyone’s homes are full to bursting, which makes the new year a great time to resolve to clear it all out.

Maybe your junk was inherited from an estate or maybe you live with someone who just can’t bear to part with anything deemed one-day useful. Either way, Jean Leon is going to be your new best friend.

Leon just opened a Junk King franchise in Haverstraw. Junk King is a junk removal and hauling company based in California with a special focus on environmental responsibility. A former radiation tech, Leon has high hopes that his Hudson Valley franchise, will provide a useful service to the community — getting rid of their junk while making a positive environmental impact.

Leon answered a few questions:

Question: What kinds of junk do people have?

Answer: They’ve got everything you can think of. Basically, rather than just periodically going through things they don’t need yearly and getting rid of them, people tend to hoard things in their basement, attic or garage until finally they’re no longer usable spaces anymore. By the time we get there, you’re looking at 10, 20, sometimes 50 years of people’s lives.

Q: How do you dispose of it?

A: We try to keep things from the landfill as much as possible so we really look at what we’re taking away. We take things back to our warehouse in Haverstraw and sort between donations, recycling and things that get dumped. That’s what separates us from other brands: We have somewhere to go and keep things and sort through, whereas others may not have that option.

If something’s in good shape we try to donate it — especially clothing or furniture — to someplace like Goodwill, Salvation Army or Habitat for Humanity. Usually about 60 percent of what we collect gets donated. We provide the tax receipt to the homeowner whose items we donated so they get the tax credit.

If things are in poor quality then we try to recycle the materials. We see all kinds of metal, plastic, cardboard — we try to recycle all of those materials. Electronics are properly disposed of.

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The third avenue we go is the transfer station. There are no dumps here in Westchester or Rockland, just transfer stations — and there’s some recycling going on there too; they separate things when you dump them.

Q: Do you take electronics, too?

A: We’ve partnered with a company that takes electronics to another location where they break them down and recycle every single part, keeping it out of landfills and keeping the chemicals out of the water supply. They take it from us for free. We don’t profit off it, but it’s good: it keeps it out of the landfill, we don’t have to pay to discard it and it’s then recycled, which is always a great part of our brand.

Q: What do you love most about your job?

A: I was a chief radiation therapist treating cancer patients for 13 years. When I treated cancer patients they were so happy, it made them feel so good when they were done with their treatments. And now, people are so happy to see Junk King drive up and so happy when we leave and they’re able to park in their garage again. ... I love that I still get to have that kind of connection with people.

Q: So ... do you watch “Hoarders”?

A: Not regularly, but yes, I have seen it. It really is a psychological thing; you have to be very patient with people. You’re there to help, never to judge. It’s like therapy for a lot of people. They’re telling funny anecdotes about one item — just listen, let them get that off their chest.

Sometimes they need to just tell that story to let that item go. They’re clearing away parts of their lives, things that are important to them.

To the world it’s junk but it was valuable to them at one time and that’s why you have to let them know, “We’re going to give that to someone who can appreciate it the way you appreciated it.”